


For This Way The Wind Blows

by Laughterinthewind



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018), Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018) RPF, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/F, F/M, Gen, Original Character(s), Self-Insert, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:21:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughterinthewind/pseuds/Laughterinthewind
Summary: She had always thought of herself as open-minded until reincarnation fucked up. Now , she is going to make sure her precious people get the life they have always deserved, come hell or high water...maybe not hell. After all, they dont seem very forgiving. Oc/self insert
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovelys,  
> This is my first attempt at not only writing but also fiction so please be gentle with the deflowering.  
> Also please let me know what you think...all constructive criticism welcome.  
> Thank you for reading.

I had been born Selina Williams. A mixed-race child of an East Indian mother and African-Irish father. I was born in the United States but it was in my mother’s homeland of Jamaica that I grew and I prospered. I was wrapped in Caribbean customs and steeped into a land filled to the brim with greenery, wrapping its greedy strangling hands on all signs of mankind as if trying earnestly to drag it back into her cavernous and starving stomach.  
Thus, it should come as no surprise being as surrounded by nature as I was that I became Mother Nature’s number one fan. Memories of silent one-man protests against the chicken being served for dinner instantly come to mind, as I alternated between eagerly taking in all animals that needed help and ferociously screaming my displeasure at the top of my little lungs when I thought that Mother Nature had been treated unfairly.  
I had dedicated the entirety of my young life to learning and defending her until my protests were silenced by notebooks and pencils as I was forced to begin taking my studies more seriously by my parents as they determinedly, albeit hopelessly, pushed me towards becoming a doctor.  
The thought of all those all-night study sessions and canceled plans as I single-mindedly bulldozed through my last year in medical school caused a bitter chuckle to crawl its way up my dry throat, scratching it even further in its haste to escape my lungs. The feel of warmed air split my already cracked lips and forced the ever present but slightly dulled taste of copper back to the forefront of my mind.  
My tired eyes opened as I took in my surroundings, unchanged, not one leaf rustled or out of place, the crickets filled the otherwise ringing silence with their music, the bent and deformed metal that was once my car held me snuggled in its embrace. A macabre demonstration of love and protection. I snorted as I looked down to the metal protruding from my abdomen and dully thought to myself, “Fractured Ribs and possible internal bleeding,” it was something I could survive or something I would have survived if I wasn’t on some bumfuck road in the middle of nowhere, if I had just called my mother like I was supposed to when I had left the party earlier, if I had just gone with my friends instead.  
Woulda, coulda, shoulda…but didn’t. I didn’t do any of those things and now as I coughed up blood feeling my body be sliced further by the metal as each cough wracked my small frame, all I could think of was my family and wasted time. Wasted birthdays, Christmases, and family nights.  
The salt of my tears burned the abrasions on my face as I let it set in that I was going to die here in the dark and alone and in pain. I was going to die 23 and with no life experience. I was going to die here bitter with regret with a mouth soured by anger and longing.  
The howling of a nearby coyote broke me from my downward spiral as the ringing in my ears and the harshness of my breath was replaced by the cicadas and the creaking of the woods. Normally, that sound would have been creepy, overwhelming me with the urge to fight or flight but now as a broken dying thing I felt welcomed.  
I felt small as I was surrounded by the immense power of the ancient beings around me…beings that saw the world change and remained unfazed. The tink tink tink of raindrops added to the woodsy orchestra and wiped away any remaining hope of being found and so I let go.  
I stopped fighting the tiredness of my eyelids, I stopped forcing my lungs to unfold…. I just stopped and allowed myself some moments of peace in my anguish. It allowed me the chance to experience love from the piece of God that I had dedicated my life to protect in any way I could. I had spent my life being a servant of Nature and in the end, she gave me peace in return.  
It was in an overbank, right off the highway, that Selina Williams stopped breathing. That the music of the woods stopped, leaving only the rain, as if aware of the presence of magic. It was in an overbank, surrounded by the same presence she had protected that Selina Williams was given another chance.


	2. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there,   
> Thank you to all the people who left kudos...I really appreciate it.   
> I hope you guys find this chapter enjoyable despite the length.   
> Annnnd awaayyyy we goooo....

I became aware slowly and then all at once, like the slow stretching of an elastic band and the sudden rebounding. The curse of consciousness pounded against the flexible walls of my mind as memories flooded through me like a river whose dam had just been broken, each particle of water rushing forward, greedy with the taste of freedom and ravenous with the focus of escape.

There was no rhyme or reason to the order at which they pillaged my mind; sad and angry twined together, leaving me reeling with grief and feelings of being wronged which were soothed by the sound of my mother's voice along with the deep baritone of my father's laugh. I had gone madmadmadmad, the din was never-ending, the assault unrelenting as I tried to hold on to some semblance of sanity in the cacophony of chaos.

Until silence…sudden and swift appeared and like that all of it was gone. The torture which seemed to last for hoursdaysmonths that made me feel as if I had been touched by the spirit of Maniae, as if the Greek Goddess of insanity had been searching for a bird's nest and had cracked my skull open and found it suitable as her perch, had vanished. In its place left uncertainty as I feared its return, itwillcomebackbackbackback, their taste bitter and salty as I held my breath waiting for what I assumed to be my divine punishment. Was it because I had stolen key chains when I was three? Or the act of breaking my sister's trophy and framing the cat? These acts had seemed small, things that could have easily been forgiven but it appeared that I had been mistaken.

But silence reigned and nothing happened…..

It was then I realized that I could feel nothing. No pain from my injuries, no cold from the metal or the blood loss nor could I feel the dampness of the rain drops. There was nothingness and that frightened me the most, paranoia choked me and fear paralyzed me further as I tried fruitlessly to move. I struggled to regain my calm as I attempted to employ any of the techniques learned from endless movie nights, "wiggle your big toe." I repeated in an endless loop making sure to keep my mind calm and clear. I didn't falter as I knew that it had taken Kiddo a shit ton of time even if I had a greater disadvantage of not being able to see my toe and therefore visualize it moving.

The screeching of my mind slamming to a halt echoed as I realized with anxiety that I couldn't see my toe…I couldn't see anything. What the fuck. I couldn't see shit.

"Okay, okay. We are okay. Take a deep breath and focus." I told myself as I repeated the same sentence I used whenever I would have anxiety attacks from the endless assignments and pop quizzes that came with the white lab coat.

"Maybe my eyes are closed." The next thought earned a snort or would have if I could produce the air necessary to make that sound. I had no lungs or at least, I couldn't feel myself breathing. This probably worked in my favor as I would have screamed bloody murder if possible. I had hit the conclusion that I had gone bat shit. Absolutely, undeniably fucking fucked in the head because there was no way I would be capable of conscious thought if I had no lungs because no lungs means no air which means no oxygen and then boom no brain.

Images of a crumpled car and red stained leather punctuated with bursts of fearagonypain and soothed by the gentle creaking of ancient oaks and eventual darkness flooded my mind.

I was dead. I had died. Didn't I?

Oh my fucking Jiminy Cricket. Is this hell? Am I in hell? I felt the urge to pull out my hair and sob. I ended up in hell. I owed my sister money, she always said I would end up here.

But this makes no sense. I mean it's not as if I was Mother Teresa but I wasn't a horrible person. I was just average….I didn't think I deserved hell, is there a complaint box or somebody I could talk to because I had been fucking wronged. Anger rolled inside of my stomach as I thought back to all the situations where I had been the bigger person and walked away, to the people I had forgiven even when their actions were unforgivable, all the attempts I made to make sure I was a good person, someone worthy of love. All of these compromises that were for fucking nothing.

The anger fizzled quickly like a matchstick dropped into the cold ocean as depression rose up and swallowed me whole. I began to sink into its cloying depths as I stewed in the knowledge that I had died, I had left everyone behind. I would never see them again. My mother. My father. My sister. My boyfriend. They were all gone and it was my fault. I had been selfish and careless and my actions had caused my needless death and their resulting grief.

The next wave of agony crashed over me as I put up no fight to the unrelenting storm of sorrow. My mind was slowly shattering. Each new discovery deliberately stripping me away until I had barely any coherent thoughts left. I was left floating, anchor-less, in memories and sounds of a time I would never get back, people I would never get to seeholdtouchlove again. I was so far gone that I had barely missed a small thump. I ignored it initially believing it to be another punishment of my cursed, vindictive mind but….there it was again. Faint but there.

My mind froze…each thought stilled in the pathway of being processed as I strained to pinpoint the sound…desperate for a life vest, something to pull me out from the darkness. Silence lingered. I had slowly started to lose hope and then it happened. Thump. I grasped onto it with greedy fingers and let it pull me from the rotting recesses of my mind.

I had never been so addicted to a sound before in my life, never been so grateful for a dull thud. It was this thump that kept me from delving further into insanity. I clung to it like a starving man. Had this sound always been here? In my personal purgatory? Had I ignored it in my anguish?

I didn't have an answer as sweet relief crested and settled as I realized there was something else here and although it could have been bad, I would have been grateful for a true death at this point. A sweet reprieve from the torture of cognizance and knowledge.

As if I had been heard by some forgiving deity…the buzzing of my brain started to slow and my thoughts started to become sluggish. Logically, I became aware that I was experiencing a crash brought on by a high stress situation and the following calm of not being alone but emotionally and mentally, I was tired so I eagerly coaxed the tiredness to take me. Hoping against all odds that if I awakened once more it would be in a sterile, white hospital room. Not noticing in my lethargy, how the thump had become sluggish as well.

Gotfuckingdamnit. I had awakened in the same blackness, the same void with only an intermittent thump as company. Beggars can't be choosers, I supposed. The thump seemed closer now without my panic to block and distort it, I noted absentmindedly.

I would come to value the sound as my days continued and I developed a routine, which entailed sleep, wake and listen to the thump. Until, in the endless loop of blackness, I began to notice the tickling of fluid running along my body and the warmth that gradually spread to every inch, I breathed an unheard sigh of relief and allowed myself to relax and revel in this evidence of life as I sent thanks to every God I knew. Eventually, I began to be able to move…twist and turn and kick around me. Every once in a while I would come into contact with a mushy wall and so I battered it…demanding my release but it remained firm.

It was later as I was listening to the thump after a brief nap, which had become increasingly frequent, when I heard a low humming resonating around me. It wasn't particularly good, no, it was pitchy and lacked rhythm to be considered anything more than unrelated notes but it was there. It was with me and I was hungry for it, positively starved, so I lived for the moments when it would accompany me and wrap me in its presence.

Time moved slowly in the darkness, the only company being my thoughts. I had long ago determined that I was in a coma. It was obvious that I was trapped in the obscurity of my mind, that I had gotten lucky and been found by some Good Samaritan and I would later awaken to the concerned faces of my family. The issue then arose "How do I wake up?" Left without an answer, I settled to wait until I could determine more of my surroundings.

I had become complacent in my prison thus the sudden constriction of my surroundings startled me awake from my rest and left me reeling in confusion and panic…wondering if I had further angered the entity confining me. I was squashed and squeezed for what felt like hours, just when I began to think it was a continuation of my punishment, I was suddenly thrown into the coldwhiteloud.

I was disorientated. There was so much going on as I felt weightlessness, my thoughts were disordered as I wondered if I was being moved. Was I being carried? Had I been in a coma? Why couldn't I speak? Why couldn't I breathe? Oh my god, I was going to diediedie.

My thoughts were shattered by a sharp pain and my body responded in turn to the sudden sensation after so long of sensory deprivation. I opened my mouth and screamed.

A wail filled my ears. What the fuck? Is there a baby here? Why the fuck would a parent have a baby in the coma unit? I felt breeze waft over me and a sudden warmth blanket me. "Hands." My mind whispered but I rebelled against the thought. NO fucking way. I refuse. I deny.

I struggled to open my heavy eyelids and eventually they cracked open out of sheer force of will but yielded to me nothing as everything was blurry and unclear. Except I could barely make out a giant blurry shape. I freaked the fuck out and screamed in response. I studiously ignored the voice that told me that the wailing I heard was of my own making.

The fucking giant shushed me and the eventual exhaustion quieted my sobs as I listened to her voice….the same fucking voice that had been humming ohnonono, fucking dare to tell me she loved me and had been so excited to meet me.

She then proceeded to call me Daphne.

It was at this point all became undeniable as the sickening feeling of the realization that I had been reborn spread through my limbs. The only thing I knew following this revelation was comforting blackness and the sounds of pandemonium and panic that faded away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's that...so please drop a review and tell me what you think.   
> ALL constructive criticism welcome.   
> Thanks for reading guys.


	3. Glinda the Good Witch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes
> 
> Here's chapter 2 guys...this is gonna be the last upload until Sunday so hopefully this tides you guys over until then.
> 
> Thank you for the support so far. I really appreciate it.

I glared angrily at the blurry wall in front of me, of course I couldn't distinguish anything but I continued for the chance at appearing inconvenienced. Yes, life you have inconvenienced me…you hear that, God! You have inconvenienced me. Oh! I fucking wished there was a complaint box because somebody deserved to be fucking fired. Not only was my death hijacked and I was subsequently tortured by blacknessendlessblackness for what I now know to be 9 months…9 fucking months….I was apparently reincarnated into the body of a fucking baby with ALL my previous memories. The therapist bill is looking pretty fucking large right now.

I felt a whine escape my notminenotmine lips as I felt like sobbing, I was a therapist's wet dream….I was so damaged. "At least you aren't a cockroach." The thought which sounded suspiciously like my sister, so much so it cause a resounding pang through my heart which ricocheted to the very marrow of my bones…God it fucking hurt, pinged into my head and caused a tearful gummy smile to flash across my infantile features.

That's right Sammy…at least I wasn't a cockroach. The dulled silver lining flashed for a second before being obscured by the light consuming blackness of thunder clouds. I had been reborn. It was official now….I had died and there was no coming back from this, no way to go back to my family and my friends. I was gone. The 'me' from before had probably rotted away to nothing but bones by now, all that remained of me, the true me, was a dusty skeleton and the engorged bacteria that had feasted upon me.

I was alone.

The thought seared my insides, roasting my organs and boiling my blood, as the agonyanguishgrief shredded what remained. I felt my stomach cave open and rage flew out and added to the inferno within me. I refuse to accept this, there has to be another way, this was no way I would allow life nor death to separate me from my precious people. Not from my mother and her stubborn love, the type that no matter how much you pushed her away she would still wrap you in her arms and battle the pain within you together. Not from my father and his gentleness, his endless smiles, boisterous laughs and the sweetness of his love that felt like eating a double scoop of chocolate chip ice cream on a hot day. Not from my boyfriend, who loved me despite my selfishness and my stubbornness, despite the way I ran from all of our problems. I would be damned… I would rather burn than have them tear me away from my sister….my poor baby sister with her curly untamable hair and her kindness which would draw everyone to her like gravity…she was my gravity…without her I would fly into space, into bleakness and obscurity before I would spontaneously combust from her absence…from longing of her presence. She was my sun and I already felt the beginnings of my wilt.

I shook my little arms and legs in a mockery of fury, in a mockery of my rage. I was self-righteous in my anger and I was aware. I knew there were millions of people who hoped and prayed for life after death or some mimicry of it but why me? Why me? I felt like shouting it from the highest skyscraper so that I would be that much closer to the heavens and all above would have no choice but to hear me. I didn't ask for this nor did I want it. I wanted my fucking family, I wanted their presence and comfort.

I closed my eyes so hard I saw spots of reds and yellows fills the black void and I prayed...for the first time in what felt like eternity, I prayed. I prayed for this to be some coma dream brought on from some nurse fucking up my medication. I prayed for some sound, some whisper of my sister's voice to fill my subconscious and to color the bleakness of mind as she would read some stupid fairytale she brought with her to bide the time until I awoke.

I prayed and prayed and prayed.

I opened my eyes to sterile, blurry white and felt the weariness wrap chains to my bones and throw me overboard into the pulsating, hungry depths of despair. I was still here. I was still in the body of a new born and I was stuck.

I felt weak and wrung dry, like some well used rag that had been washed one too many times. My soul felt worn, I felt worn. I didn't want this opportunity and I would gladly exchange it for the chance, the whisper of the prospect, to be some specter trailing behind those I loved. Even if it meant watching them grieve. I would subject myself to that mind plundering punishment from my first month of my incarceration just to be able to witness my sister's graduation or my boyfriend's wedding to some lucky girl who should have been me. Could have been me. I was willing to make a deal with the devil for the chance to haunt her if she ever dared to hurt him, even glanced outside the lines of their relationship. I was willing to give all that I could and all that I couldn't for this chance.

I felt my soul quake in yearning and longing as I sent all my promises to anyone who would listen. I felt the bindings of my sanity loosen as I made the promises louder, echoing off my skull with glass shattering amplitudes. I forced myself to repeat them on a loop, my new mantra, until I swore I could feel my soul rising…feel the stomach lifting weightlessness that accompanied being on an airplane right when it took off, the moment where you realized that man wasn't meant to fly and "Holy shit, I'm flying!"

The smashing of a steel tray on the porcelain floor shattered my concentration and forced my eyes open unbidden. For a moment I thought I had succeeded, thought I had moved myself into the right hospital room, thought that the blurriness and the red spotted edges of my vision were due to how hard I had squeezed my eyes shut and would fade as they adjusted. But the spots left and the blurriness remained. Nothing had changed. Only now I felt hungry and tired in my effort.

A quote from my textbook came to mind as I remembered that newborns were extremely fragile following birth and that their bodies were not capable of much other than resting and eating. I growled low in my throat and heard a rough gurgle rebound at me like a vicious slap to the face…the uselessness of that knowledge, of any knowledge at this point pissing me off and tipping me further off the precipice of sanity. I wasn't stupid, I knew I was dangerously approaching a psychotic break and I longed for it…I wanted to be so far gone that this wouldn't hurt so much. All I needed to do was take one more step and embrace the liberating fall.

A giggle echoed through the room and caught my attention. "You're a cute baby, Sel." I heard a high pitched voice say.

I knew that voice. My heart picked up a staccato rhythm. I opened my mouth and tried desperately to call out, "Sammy!" My sightless eyes trying in vain to search for some blurry outline of her figure that I knew so well I could draw from memory.

I whimpered and squirmed while trying to force the air to leave my vocal chords the right way to make the sound of her name. She giggled in response to my obvious frustration and said, "Don't worry Sel, I'm here."

My body relaxed and the gnawing jaws of pain eased in its attack as silent sobs of relief forced themselves passed pressed, white lips and entered the air, a shuddering companion to the silence. "Sammy please don't go. Don't leave me." I wanted to shout. I wanted to hold on to her hands and feel the warmth of them, to make sure this wasn't some hallucination from my dented mind.

"Shush, Sel. You know babies can't handle this much stress. Go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up. Together forever, remember?" Her voice was scolding, as if she was disappointed in how I was reacting to being fucking reborn…I felt the urge to stick my spit soaked finger in her ear as I was wont to do when we were younger as punishment, but at the same time I was so desperate for her presence and her voice that I was willing to do anything she asked of me as long as she would stay.

Logic and emotion warred within me as I rebelled against her suggestion, desperate for one last minute with my sister. I could feel my skin prickling as if I was an ant under a magnifying glass; one step away from being set ablaze from concentrated sunlight. I reveled in it, as it was proof she was here. She was here with me. I could almost imagine the pout of full lips, the bottom one pinker than the top, and the consternated creasing of her forehead at not getting her way. At my refusal of her orders. I heard her sigh and say, "I guess it can't be helped. You always were the more stubborn of the two of us."

I preened under her assessment of me and strained my ears to hear her as clearly as I could…memorizing the sound of each consonant and vowel.

"I can't believe you are willing to waste such a chance. Such an opportunity. You always said you wanted a big adventure, well here it is. Take it!"

I recoiled in shock at her sudden shout and the callousness of her words. Did she really not prefer me to be with her as a ghost compared to some baby that she wouldn't even be able to truly hug for years to come? Had she gotten over my passing so quickly and had sensed my attachment to her, viewing it as some unwanted parasite instead of sisterly devotion, as such had come here to sever it? To alleviate herself of its undesirable weight?

"Don't think like that Sel! I love you and you know that. It's because of this love that I'm willing to let you go. You need to let go Sel or you're going to sink. Something wicked is coming your way and nobody will be able to stop it but you." She said soothingly, easing some of the heartache but adding to my now overflowing well of confusion.

"Have faith, Sel. Everything happens for a reason, remember? I need you to live for me Sel. To have the life you have always wanted." She continued as if this was a normal conversation had between two longtime friends over a cup of bitter tea that had long grown cold.

I wanted to rage. How dare she! As if I had asked for this chance, as if I wanted it. As if I could live a life without her…without the rest of my family. Didn't she know that any life I wanted or any adventure to be had would be nothing without her by my side? Didn't she know that my well of faith had run dry? That I had casted bucket after bucket hoping for it to be filled but instead hearing the grating of wood against concrete as I scraped the bottom?

She giggled, "I'm going to be right beside you every step of the way. Just take a chance. Promise me." She demanded. All the presumptuousness of being the younger sibling shining through, of never being denied anything. She expected me to promise. She knew I would.

I struggled as I moved my head in a botched nod as I clung to her promise of being there. As long as she was with me I would give this life the best I had. I would make it my bitch. Just for her.

"Good, rest now. We will talk more later. Oh, don't forget to cry, you're giving the nurse a fright." Her voice echoed as if she was moving further away, each word coated with a mischief that always seemed to surround her. I struggled to try and move…to follow her and then I stilled.

I had made a promise. I never broke a promise. I wouldn't start now.

I drew in the largest breath I could manage and screeched to all those who could hear, I sobbed my acquiescence to this life…to the deity who gifted it to me. I heard the rapid movements of feet and the faint exhalation of relief. I had a lot to do to make this life perfect. I had a lot to do to make sure my sister stayed with me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for now. In this chapter, we kinda get a better look into how sel is dealing with this whole rebirth thing...newsflash she isn't doing so great. Honestly, I had read other rebirths fics and I just found it strange how the mc always seems to be perfectly well adjusted when personally I would shit myself. I was aiming to write a more realistic mc, someone who is relatable so I hope I accomplished that so far.
> 
> Hope this chapters is good for you guys. Have a great weekend. See ya Sunday. *kisses*


	4. There is No Place like Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors notes:
> 
> Hey guys, this chapter is a little boring. I had planned to truly get the story going today but I felt like Sel-Daphne wouldn't just accept her situation so easily even if her sister told her to. So this is just a chapter to realistically show Daphne moving just one step closer to not necessarily accepting her situation but being just a tad bit less resentful. Sorry in advance to any readers who may find this chapter boring. I promise though that the story will definitely move forward next chapter. As always thank you for reading and to my amazing reviewers thank you for your thoughts.

"Promise me." It had been repeating on a loop in my mind since Sammy had disappeared until the words became slurred and convoluted like a burning record that was still being played. Resentment had soured my palette following our reunion as I realized I had sold out my own wants, albeit selfish wants but mine none the less, for my sister and her whims as per usual. "You chose to…anything to make her stay, or have you forgotten?" A sinister voice whispered in my mind…croaking as they haltingly pronounced each word. I had chosen to. I had chosen to just as she had chosen to be with me. Her sister. Had traipsed through time and space with a selfish perseverance just to be here with me. Had crossed death just to guide me and pull me from the shrieking, churning abyss of insanity. She had conquered life and death for me and so I could do this for her. Anything for her.

The thought gave me comfort as I stared determinedly at the blurry ceiling above as the blob which I had now identified as my warden, moved in and out of my field of view while changing my diaper. It was humiliating, in the way of having your biking top come loose at a crowded beach or having your mother tell your boyfriend at his first family dinner about the time you shat yourself in the fourth grade. In my defense, I was constipated for three weeks prior.

The occurrence had, however, become routine during the 5 months since my unwilling welcome into this world…I refused to think of it as a birth because although I had immense respect for women who could allow a watermelon to tear through their nether regions, it was more difficult when you were the watermelon to feel anything but a severe feeling of discomfort and nausea. I had passed through this woman's vagina, which was a whole level of intimacy that I was not ready nor particularly willing to deal with.

Instead, I had grown increasingly bitter as time went on until I had a permanent taste of bile at the back of my throat as I had to deal with months of convalescence and having to go from being independent to being completely reliant on someone else for the basic of necessities. It was a hard pill to swallow. It felt like nails embedding themselves in the walls of my throat before being dragged downwards leaving long, deep etchings in their wake. The discomfort was not eased during sleep,no, in the place of soothing blackness I spent most of the time being filled with a deep seated feeling of not belonging and yearning for my sister which left me in a perpetual state of exhaustion and unexpressed fury.

In my inability to healthily express my rage and resentment I had turned to taking it out on this bodies birth giver… I had become a nightmare. I wanted her to regret her decision in having me and taking care of me. I wanted her to suffer.

But no matter what I did, crying through the night until I felt lightheaded and tasted blood in the back of my throat nor refusing to eat until tears of frustration streamed down her face in salty rivulets…even when I threw all the food she gave me on what was admittedly a very lovely and expensive looking shirt. She still greeted me each morning with a smile on her caramel face and endless patience even if I could clearly see in her muddy eyes the sadness and pain.

It was almost enough to make me feel sympathetic towards her plight…almost but not quite. I had no mercy in my heart for her. It was partially her fault that I was here. She had caused this by having a child whose body my soul could fill and as such she deserved to be punished as much as I had been. She deserved to be on the precipice of completely shattering her mind into sharp, jagged pieces with no hope of ever putting it back together again. No matter how she twisted and turned the pieces they would never fit quite right like a jigsaw puzzle with some edges rubbed down. They were meant to be together but would never work in harmony. She deserved all of it.

"There. All done." She said in her sweet tone. If the situation had been different I would have found this woman worthy of love and respect.I would have found her voice soothing, the maternal intonations relaxing, it was the kind of voice that flowed over you like the cold, crystal clear water of a fast rushing river. It was free of the pollution of hatred and the darkening undertones of manipulation. She sounded like kindness. The situation wasn't different.

I hated her. Her voice felt like nails grating against a chalkboard, the air shrieking and vibrating with each breath she took till all I heard was a bloody scream pounding against my ear drum. Her presence made rage coil in my center like a vicious snake waiting to pounce, it made my hair stand on end and my eyes narrow till all I saw was her body hazed in red. I wanted to paint it red. She was an endless reminder that I was hereherehere.

I saw her smile dim and her body visibly wilt on itself with my now almost normal vision. Her eyes filling with wariness as she took the brunt of my hate filled gaze. I had made her nervous. Good, I practically purred.

"Why do you hate me, Daphne?" She whispered heartbrokenly. My soul rebelled against the sound of that forbidden name. wrongwrongwrong. It flung itself against the bodily bars of this fleshy cell and howled its fury, snarling and spitting as I tried to will myself into motion…I wanted to shriek my displeasure, color the air with the sound of my voice. "That's not my name!" I wanted to yell it so loud the glasses would shatter in the neighbor's house. My weak arms shook in the air as my body twisted and turned filled to the brim with a rage so large it wasn't built to accommodate it. It was like the restraint I had shown over the course of these never-ending months snapped like a cord pulled just a little too thin. The tiredness of not truly resting months because ididntbelonghere pushed me further into the warm embrace of wrath.

"Daphne, please!" She sobbed as she watched her child rage… NO. I wasn't her child nor would I ever be. My mouth contorted in a gummy snarl.

"Promise me" The words rung through my mind, echoing and reverberating against the walls of it until all I heard was a din of syllables accompanied by hot white flashes of light. My anger snarled in response. How dare she! So what if I had promised her, she had promised me. Together forever. That she would be there for me, with me but she abandoned me. Left me.

How fucking dare she! She tricked me into living this sham of a life…using my love for her, my devotion to her, my willingness to sacrifice even myself for her, to allow myself to burn at the pyre of promises that I had lit all by my lonesome just to see her smile.

The flashes increased in frequency till I all I saw was alternating screens of white and black…the din got louder until it was a high pitched ringing that filled all available spaces with its greedy body. I vaguely recognized tight hands holding onto me. It was that woman. Touching me. I felt myself ignite….then pain. Endless, teeth shattering, bone contorting pain. Pain that felt like it lasted so long until it became the only word I knew. Painpainpain. I gritted my gums even further and dug my feet into the sandy ground, I refused to submit. I wouldn't submit. It would have to end me.

I heard the jingle of bell like laughter to my challenge and the shifting of air which felt like that of a nod. Challenge accepted. The pain increased, the feelings of pins and needles and knives digging into my mind and carving my brain alternated with flames slowly devouring me, inch by painstaking inch like a snake slowly but surely devouring its weaker prey. I was the prey.

"Give in Sel." Sammy. "Give in Sel and it will go away but you have to give in." I snarled in protest and twisted my head, trying in vain to get away from the sound of her voice. "Why are you punishing her, Sel?" Her voice sounded petulant, as I had taken away her favorite toy...completely ruining her day. Her nonchalance at my emotional ruin further aggravating me..

"Why are you punishing her?" The pain cracked against my skull. "She has done nothing and you know that."

"Cease this childishness, Sel." My name came from her lips like a whinge, completely devoid of understanding but filled with a vicious sense of self-righteousness..

"Stop fighting it, Sel."

"Give in…please, for me?" For me. For Sammy. Promise me. You had promised. The air was sucked out of my lungs leaving deflated balloons in its wake. Promise me. I had promised. I had promised and I was breaking it.

I felt myself shudder as the pain eased and the whiteness faded, slowly letting in the rainbow of the world around me. I felt a weight draped against me, which was shaking. My eyes took in the face of the woman above me. Her cupid lips. Her warm, sun kissed complexion. The deep depths of her roasted eyes as they looked down on me in endless grief and sorrow.

She hadn't hurt me.

She had loved me.

I felt myself wail. I felt myself bawl, shudder and shake in my grief, let the salt of my tears carry my apologies.

I felt her match each cry with one of her own. A mother mourning her child, trying to find a way to atone for the mistakes she must have done to have angered the only being in the world she truly loved. Gotdamnit, she didn't deserve this.

Promise me. I had promised. I had failed.

"It's okay, Sel" I heard her whisper. My ears pricking to the sound of her voice and I felt a deep longing as I wished that she was the one holding me. Her voice eased me as I basked in her forgiveness and her presence like it was a soothing balm.

Teary vision darted to the position over the corner of that woma-…my mother's body. She stood looking down on me with pity and heartbreak written over her face.

"You promised me Sel and you broke it." Her voice breaking over the last syllable and I whimpered in response. I had hurt her. I had made my sister cry. The agony cracked inside of me. I'm so sorry Sammy. So sorry.

"It's okay, Sel. You can fix it…you still have time." She said in response. I felt the hurt intensify. I had hurt her and she was so willing to forgive.

What can I do Sammy? I wanted to ask. Tell me. Tell me.

"Move on and let go. This is the only life for you. Stop punishing Sylvia." Slyvia. From the forest. I let my eyes drift over her features once more, this time no longer filled by the distorting cloud of hatred which had painted her as something demonic. It suited her. She resembled a fae. "Something delicate." I thought to myself as my eyes took in the broadened slope of her nose.

"Let her in, Sel." Sammy whispered as if she didn't want to break the contemplative air I had gathered around me, like a defeated woman picking up the fragments of the wine glass that had slipped from clumsy fingers.

Slyvia opened her eyes and glanced down at me. Love and adoration in the far recesses of her agony darkened gaze. I looked at her and I felt the regret twisting my stomach into painful knots as I took in the bags under her almond eyes. I let my mouth lift slightly into a halfhearted smile, the first one since my birth. An apology. The muscles strained from disuse, the cobwebs clinging to the movement, making it feel more like the turning of a rusty crank instead of what should have been a daily action.

Her eyes widened in shock and her sobs increased as she clung to me more tightly. I felt my muscles protest in response as I realized she had picked me up because I had been contorting myself in my rage. I felt my true age plus decades, I was tired.

I felt my eyelids slowly start to lower, for once, not thinking about Sammy and her presence or lack thereof but basking in the warmth of this woman. This woman who was so filled with love and forgiveness. This woman who didn't deserve having a broken child.

For the first time since I had landed in this place, I let myself truly rest. Liberated in the knowledge that she loved me and that one day, I could love her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, Daphne went through a lot in this chapter and while I'm not saying she is going to be all farting rainbows the next chapter...she will be a tad bit less angry and maybe a little more willing to see this life play out. Who knows really? I just let the process take me.
> 
> See ya guys soon with the next chapter. Thanks for reading.


	5. Gleaming Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys,
> 
> Here is the new chapter and we really get the ball rolling into the dark abyss of Sabrina. Hope you guys like it.

I was a year old when I determined I wasn't quite normal.

I had been in my mother's greenhouse. It wasn't anything special, oh no, it was hastily constructed out of refurbished ply board and murky tarps with a glass ceiling that had long since been almost covered by a sight-dulling white film which had been brought on from years of rain and abandon.

My mother had inherited the greenhouse along with the house adjacent. It was a gift from a dying aunt who my mother had never even met or knew existed, only that some lawyer from some prairie surrounded, country town had called her one evening about her surprise inheritance from great aunt 'Griselda', who in her dying moments had called out my mother's name with the desperation of a man being pulled further into a murky swamp by the iron clad jaws of a crocodile.

Overall, I had found the entire situation to be quite confounding but once I had step foot into those humid halls, I understood why my mother hadn't sold the property following her visit to see just what exactly she had earned the rights to. My mother has said it was clarity, that I had felt wrap around me more snugly than my pink plush blanket clenched in my pudgy brown fist. Clarity that had sent her careening down the road from Louisiana, like the devil was nipping at her heels, at midnight to step foot into this town and never leave.

My mother said that in all her 20 years of searching, she had never felt belonging as much as she did in these four draped walls and as such had set her soul and mind to fixing up the places left to her and making them into a home. She was well on her way too from what I could see, some of the moth eaten tarps had long since been replaced by glass paneling and my eyes caught new wooden beams placed securely in the corner for later installment, pots filled to the brim with freshly tilled dirt lay on old benches that she had up cycled into usable and efficient tables so she could tend to her plants without back pain. She had added windows to let in the cooled, Halloween scented air and some old metal pipes that had been strategically placed to collect the rainwater and funnel it to each pot like the loving hand of a mother spoon feeding her child.

My mother had been building her sanctum but I was confused as to why she had stopped. Why she had abandoned something that I could clearly see the love that she had placed into each inch? My question must have shown brightly in my dark almond shaped eyes as she smiled with patience gleaming from each dulled white tooth, "I had you." She said with no resentment in her tone for what I now knew to my inconveniencing existence, I had been so caught up with being inconvenienced myself that I hadn't thought that I had been unplanned but looking at everything around me that appeared to have been dropped as soon as they could, it was apparent that I had been.

She continued our would be brief trek through the little dirt covered passageways left between each row of tables as she explained in her soothing voice, "I came here because something told me to, whispered and pulled me until I felt like if I hadn't left Louisiana my body would have been set ablaze for my disobedience by some unknown force."

My interest peaked, she had a way of doing that, my mother. A way of pulling me out of my morose shell with her stories, she was an excellent knew exactly how much emotion to put into each word, building her tale like God built the waves…adding drop after drop of salty liquid until they were almost touching the sky before she would let it crest over you and tell you the ending. I knew it was her way to try and make me happier, I was a year old and I hardly smiled or laughed, those two occurrences reserved only for the earthy woman in front of me. I had developed a soft spot for her and her eagerness to live and her willingness to laugh at nothing and everything.

Her voice pulled me out of my reverie as she continued her tale, "I hadn't heard of this 'Griselda' nor her magical home which called to me but I noticed that as soon as I stepped foot into this town…I found peace and it was like the strings guiding me were cut and my body sagged like a relieved puppet."

My eyes widened at her imagery as my mind constructed her first visit to the town. It must have been something to tie a woman like my mother to someplace for so long. My mind filled with tales of all the places that she visited from Oregon, where she grew up in a foster home in a small town that even the thought of made my mother's smile dim and eyes turn distant, to Salem, Massachusetts before ending up in New Orleans and then eventually here in Greendale. The name suited the place as from end to end our home was surrounded by sturdy, moss covered Native American Elms, Northern Red Oaks, Red Maples and Red Gum among others…all placed lovingly in the forest we called home.

It would be when I was older that I would ask my mother, "Why? Why did you move around so much?" She would laugh, a chiming and mischievous sound, and tell me, "I was just following the call of the magic like all wild women do, my love."

But now sitting in her arms,wrapped around me in a physical demonstration of love, that thought was far from my mind as I was absorbed into her story, "I had walked through the town center, listening to the creaking welcome of the woods and I knew that this place was special…it was something. It wasn't until I stepped foot onto your great aunt's property, however, that I knew it was home." She tilted her head and looked at me shrewdly, as if committing each chubby feature to her memory from pink,plump lips to an identical nose and shared eyes. Her hand brushed the top of my curly head and she smiled. My breath caught in my lungs as if they loved this gasp of air so much they couldn't let it go, her smile was filled with so much love that I felt embarrassed and undeserving. My cheeks warmed and even though she couldn't see the blood rushing to the surface, she smiled. I puffed out my cheeks because I knew that it was the darting, nervous movement of my eyes away from her face, as I couldn't bare to look at that smile that I didn't deserve, that gave me away.

"I didn't know that when I planted roots into this town that I would be getting such a wondrous gift. A daughter. You."

My eyes turned further away from her blatant show of adoration. I had always been awkward with affection even when my name had been Selina, I had always preferred rushed hugs and punches than kisses and declarations of love. Saying 'I love you' to my precious people had felt like pulling teeth but ten times more painful.

She let out a short laugh at my discomfort and pressed her warm lips to my cheek as she continued tenderly, "I wasn't going to give your father time of day but I was glad I did, even though I never saw him again." Telling a child that she was the product of a one night stand was a tad inappropriate and callous but I reveled in the bluntness as it was always better to rip off the band aid instead of pulling slowly and tearing the surrounding skin with it. I had preferred knowing I would be without a paternal figure in this life from now instead of wondering where he was when I was 5. I had had enough fatherly love to fill me to the brim and overflow on the ground surrounding me from my last life to leave me without wanting in this one.

However, as I took in the saddened tilt to my mother's lips and her downcast eyes, I couldn't help but hate the man who had contributed to my creation. Hated him for hurting her, my only precious person in this life with the exception of my sister, who would always be my priority. I placed a poorly coordinated hand on her cheek with a small slap and pulled her gaze to me before giving her a gap-toothed smile. She laughed in response. The darkness in her eyes dimming but never fading.

"I almost forgot. I wanted to show you something." At this point our hair had begun to frizz and sweat was beading on all exposed skin. I wanted to quickly see whatever it was and leave into the brisk autumn air that was waiting for us outside.

"Your first birthday has passed last week and I think you will appreciate the beauty I'm about to show you." She said before diverging at the end of a passageway. My attention shifting from the humid,oppressing heat as I watched hungrily where we were going. I had always been curious.

There. She didn't have to tell me this is what she wanted me to see. I just knew. The ways trees knew when it was going to rain, minutely stretching their leaves even further to the heavens, eagerly awaiting their rewards for so many years of silent worship. The way a mother knew her child from a glance into blind new born eyes and the heavy weight of someone else's future in their arms. The way a wolf knew there was companionship in the loneliness of the moon and howled its welcome and waited for a grateful response.

The bloom in front of me, surrounded by dusty broken shards of brown clay, reverent spiders who caught the flies before they could pollute the beauty, dusty and torn plastic from replaced tarps…was stunning in its simplicity. It had dove soft, white petals which stretched outwards as if trying to spread to the dark confines surrounding it, in its interior were tiny, yellow tipped stamens which gleamed dull gold in the distorted light passing through the roof. It stood atop a yellow-green stem which appeared to be approaching its last leg of life as evidenced by its dropping yellowed leaves. It was also apparent that my mother had been trying to save it, an empty watering can and opened bags of fertilizer stood vigil at the altar of this dying, beautiful thing. But the flower remained untouched by the creeping decay. It remained youthful.

My mother brought us closer...close enough to touch this single bloom in all its stubbornness to survive. My hand reached out carefully as if just disturbing a single air particle would cause the plant to lose its fight and the bloom would fall to the ground unsupported and with no chance of survival like a baby bird cast from the nest too soon. My eyes stayed still, vision filled with white as I watched the bloom lift its lonely head as if sniffing and determining if I was friend or foe. I stilled my breath in a shuddering gasp as I repeated friendfriendfriend so quickly as if begging the flower for the chance to touch her. The flower seemed to nod its consent and the air came rushing out of me as my hand covered the distance between us hungrily yet cautiously. My finger brushed a powder soft petal after what simultaneously felt like eternity and no time at all, my body stiffened and shuddered with ecstasy as I felt the sheer life flowing through the green fountain in front of me. It was swirling and leaping all around me as if the very air was filled to the brim with this being. It colored my surroundings a light shimmering green. Green is life, I remember my friend telling me once as she was describing how she explained to her blind cousin the colors. Green is life.

A soft wisp of a laugh escaped my lips as I dove further and further down this pulsating rabbit hole. I felt alive. For the first time since my rebirth, I wasn't just living but alivealivealive. My mother had gone strangely silent the only remainder to her presence was the cautious nudge of the green tendril. "Friend or foe", it seemed to ask. "Family", I responded. She was my family.

The swirling vortex of green seemed to glow even more brightly as it recognized my mother and welcomed her like it welcomed me. You are me and I am you. We are one.

I felt the weight of the world disappear from my shoulders like the crumbling of century old buildings leaving behind only dust. We are one. I reluctantly withdrew my hand at the sound of my mother's voice and the feeling of her shifting me in her arms. I kept my eyes closed determined to continue the warm, lulling feeling inside of me of true life.

"Daphne." She whispered, "Come home."

I opened my eyes and was filled with the vision of white as the bloom leaned towards me as yearning as I was but yet the plant no longer seemed defeated as I took in the bright green stem and the healthy, wide and waxy leaves that seemed to reach for the light rays in its dusty corner. I felt a true smile light across my face. The kind that comes from laughing so hard your stomach cramps in retaliation, the kind that hurts if you hold it too long. I smiled as I took in the five identical blooms spread along the stem of this plant, I smiled as I felt the life before me sing its victory, sing it's triumph over death that had tried to take it but failed. Sing it's thanks to me.

I laughed in tune with the song and felt my mother laugh along.

"It was waiting for you." She said, "Just like I was."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for now guys. We are getting a deeper look into Daphne's new life and all that it entails. The next chapter is in the works and will be uploaded as soon as possible. I hope people are still reading this story lol, but if you are...hope you enjoyed it and drop a review if you want. Let a girl know what you guys think or better yet what you guys think is going to happen, would love to hear some theories.
> 
> See ya, guys.


	6. Mother of Mercy-Slyvia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys! Hope everyone has been safe during this pandemic. I'm back with another chapter which was supposed to be posted a while ago...I am soooo sorry...but I struggled with this chapter a lot as it was originally supposed to be entirely different. After many rewrites though I felt like this chapter was just meant to be Slyvia so I wrote it from her perspective and it just came together.
> 
> Some disclaimers before you get into it...as stated on my profile I own nothing but my own characters and there are some triggers in this chapter. Nothing too explicit but very heavily implied such as miscarriage, domestic violence and that should be it. So please if these are triggering for you please do not read and I would prefer if you guys just skip this chapter altogether as it does not really contribute to the flow of the story but does help with the character development of Slyvia and as such wont harm the flow of the story.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it and please forgive me for the delay. As always constructive criticism is welcome but not demanded...only if you want to. Be safe guys.

Slyvia knew that when she left New Orleans life would probably screw her over again. Like it did when she was born in that damned town to those people who left her on the doorsteps of hell just because they messed up and had her 10 years too soon. She knew that her leaving her cozy little souvenir shop which focused on treatments of the holistic kind and had cute little bubbling cauldrons of dry ice and fragrant essential oils, to pull in the tourists, in front would mean having no stable income. But as the wind seemed to whisper Greendale over and over in her ears, in a sweet lulling purr reminiscent of the way boyfriend #3 would tell her he loved her before he turned her black and blue inside and out…it was the type of sugary sweetness that you couldn't resist but you knew deep down it wasn't good for you, that she knew she had to go. She knew that the piece of parchment in her hand was calling her to somewhere and she knew it might not be good for her in the end but fuck it.

Slyvia was willing to take that chance. She wouldn't fall into the same traps like boyfriends number 3 and 4…they were mistakes on her ever growing list. They were products of her searching for self-love in the bottom of a bottle and at the end of a man's fist who swore he loved her and made sure to paint it on her skin so all the other men knew too. She didn't need their love anymore because she had found her own and gotdamn was it warm.

So instead of cowering from the calling…she grinned devilishly and packed her sparse belongings in the trunk of her car, said goodbye to her landlord and off she went in a smoke cloud filled with the choking scent of uncertainty and the dark presence of recklessness. She passed through state lines like something was trying to pull her under and in a way it was. She had always ran. Since she was 16 and had finally gotten her license, she had 'borrowed' boyfriend number 1's car…he had been decent, somewhat arrogant and egotistical but he hadn't hit her and if he was only dating her to get back at his uptown, high end parents who thought of her as trailer trash and made sure to rub her nose in it each time they could, well that's life. She had rubbed her nose, as if trying to get the stain off, and pushed the gas pedal so hard it creaked. She still remembered how the town sign, all wood worn and weary, had waved goodbye to her…gently creaking in the wind before stilling, as if to say 'don't come back…you got out, don't come back.'' It didn't have to worry because she wasn't going to.

It had been so fucking easy. Leaving it all behind, the creak of the wooden cane across her back for not doing the dishes, the jeers of the more privileged, parent having children, the lustful stares of older men who had nothing to fear if they triedsampledtouched her because she was so alone. She left it all behind without a glance. And she did it again and again and again until she had a pre-packed suitcase and a tank always full of gas because she was on a mission. She was on a mission to find home, sure she got a little sidetracked by good looking men with awful intentions but hey that's okay because she got it together in the end. She always did, no matter how life turned and twisted and kicked the shit out of her when she was dirty, hungry, tired and sobbing from being so achingly alone…she would get up and put herself together with a smile because the flowers she admired so much never stayed with their faces down because if they did…they would never see the sunshine and wouldn't that be a shame.

She had always looked to them for support. The huge, neglected garden in front of the orphanage was her comfort, her solace because she was like them. Neglected and unloved but they prospered and grew and covered everything with their twisting greenery that she couldn't help but laugh victoriously as she watched them conquer those who tried to beat them into submission. The greenery was her family and in return she took care of them. She had tended the garden like a woman possessed until every upturned leaf and silk soft petal had her image and a piece of her soul. She had cared for that garden as if she had been paying homage to Mother Gaia and in a way she had been, for Mother Gaia gave her life so in return she gave it back to a piece of the Mother that had wilted. If there was anything that she regretted about leaving…it would be having to leave her garden. Their image remained seared into her, because just like the dandelions, she would outgrow those who tried to ruin her, it was inevitable.

She never met anything or anyone she loved like she loved those plants. Her first family. Not even boyfriend number 2 and 3 who had been her first real lovers as she had been fresh off the high of having just escaped her prison cell and slightly world weary from having to figure out the life that followed. Nothing came close. Not until she saw the property that her so-called aunt or something like that had left her. It was all broken down, water warped, mold stained wood but it spoke to her more than any other place she had ever rented. Maybe it was because this one was hers by law. She had shrugged and continued to idly walk through the empty halls with their curious peeling wallpaper which seemed to rise a few inches as she passed them, like they were trying to let the being behind them see the invader. But she didn't feel unwelcomed, with each step she took… her well-worn sneakers falling in line with the dainty click-clacking of the realtor's feet, she realized she felt like they had accepted her as their owner like some puppy in a pound who couldn't stop wagging their tail because they knew the human looking through the bars belonged to them.

She felt at peace but she didn't truly feel belonging until she saw the foggy, cracked glass of what was meant to be the greenhouse. Then she knew that although she belonged to them, this was hers.

So she told the realtor she wasn't selling and moved right in. She loved it, except at night. That's when she truly felt the emptiness that pervaded the house and herself.

It wasn't until she saw him, that she felt like maybe she could have a family to fill the house's empty rooms. He had swaggered in, all long black hair and tattered clothing, like he owned the coffee shop that she had been sitting in, trying to absorb some human interaction. He had moved with a carefully selected placement of his limbs as if he was trying to mimic the walk of someone he had seen earlier. Normally, the abnormality of his very presence would have made her run the other way, as it was apparent from her track record that her and men didn't really get along too well, but he had stopped as he was entering and gently shifted the placement of a potted plant from being just a tad too much in the shadows to being right in the path of the sun's rays and in that simple act of kindness, Slyvia was a goner.

She loved him. She wanted to marry him. She reveled in his attentions and affections until he disappeared. No trace, no goodbye, just a cold side of the bed and his missing clothes. She sunk then. Into the cold, grasping arms of depression and probably would have stayed there until the smell of roses had wafted to her window and ripped her from selfish arms and placed her gently into the healing grasp of her plants, who had never left her. She continued in that manner, healing bit by bit, until she felt sick.

Slyvia had never loved anything as much as she loved that garden, as much as she loved that greenhouse, as much as she loved that man until she loved the little being inside of her. She was told she was pregnant after expecting the flu and it was the scariest, most amazing moment of her life. She had placed her hand on her stomach in wonder and thoughts of whether she was worthy flooded her mind with memories of her own horrid childhood. Was she good enough to raise this child? Would she damage it? Should she not have it? The last thought filled her with sickening bile and made her hand clench possessively over her abdomen and it was then she knew that she would try her fucking hardest to be a good mother to this child.

So she followed the Doctor's orders and ate what they told her and tended her garden so she would be able to welcome her child into their full family. It was perfect till it wasn't. Till her pants bled red one day too soon. Till she was told there was no heartbeat on the fancy silver machine. Till she flung herself on her knees in front of the hospital, nestled in the little garden and wailed for her mother. Not the human one who had casted her aside but the green one that had nestled her into her bosom, that had calmed and comforted her when she was alone….she wailed for her mother to help her and help her baby until her voice rang hoarse before breaking into silence, until the tears stopped streaming because she had nothing left to give, until tiny droplets washed away their salt on her cheeks, until the hospital workers came running and tried to pull her back in as she gripped her belly in soul crushing grief.

She would later tell the dark, curious but still sad eyes of her daughter that it was her grandmother that saved her, that breathed so much life into her that it transferred to the green around her, that reached into death and brought her home to Sylvia's arms because she couldn't bear to see Slyvia cry.

It was Mother Gaia that gave Slyvia a home and a family. It was Mother Gaia that saved her as she teetered on the edge of losing what part of her she had left. It was Mother Gaia that was her salvation. So she named her daughter Daphne because just like the nymph she had been fleeing for her life, in this case the dark grasp had been death and it was Mother Gaia that had turned her into something that death couldn't reach…the shimmering green of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...that's it guys. I tried really hard to make this chapter into one of Daphne's life but it just wasn't happening so I hope this one is okay.
> 
> Just want to let you all know that even though Sabrina has been cancelled, I am determined to finish this fic and give all my characters and those who aren't mine the ending they deserve.
> 
> See you all soon and please continue to be safe.


	7. Wilting Sapling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everybody! Hope everyone is being safe and having a nice day. This chapter is really long, so I apologize in advance, but it is also is very important as it details some really valuable interactions.
> 
> I would also like to dedicate this chapter to the ever kind ketsueko whose kind words gave me the motivation I needed to finish this chapter. Even though I'm still not all that satisfied with it, which is a product of my own insecurity as I have been told, others have found it to be a delightful read. I hope you guys do too. Thank you, Ketsueko. You have been a devoted fan of this story since it's inception and I am forever grateful, hopefully, you like this chapter and it does you justice.
> 
> Before we get into it, just a few simple matters:
> 
> Mare- This is a malicious entity in germanic and Slavic folklore and is often credited as being the cause of sleep paralysis as they feed off the fear and misfortune of others.
> 
> Jutnor- is a Norse giant
> 
> Shylock-He is a character from 'Merchant of Venice' who I found myself truly in love with. Not for his actions but for his depth as it was due to the treatment of others, as he was a Jew, that he became the villain.
> 
> Reference has been made to all of these later on in the chapter, so hopefully, you guys understand where I'm coming from. As always, I own nothing but my characters, and please enjoy the story.

"Well, isn't this wonderful." I muttered to myself under my breath as I lazily casted my eyes across the sandy playground which various screaming toddlers had claimed as their own in rambunctious play.

My nose crinkled daintily as I shuddered in disgust while one particularly freckled boy ate his booger with one finger and continued his search for more green treasures with the other. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Matter of fact, I was fucking disgusted. I turned my almond eyes to the ever-curious gaze of Slyvia, who had been watching me and searching for a reaction, my resolve to cry my way out of the current situation shriveled up before quietly sinking into oblivion as I observed the earnestness and the desperate desire churning in Slyvia's gaze and darkening the caramel brown into roasted honey. It was apparent my mother wanted me to be a normal child with normal childhood experiences which was something not altogether unexpected as I had a sinking suspicion that Slyvia had missed out on those same opportunities and probably experienced something monstrous. My mind involuntarily replayed memories of my mother flinching away from loud noises and always glancing over her shoulder warily.

I felt my stomach twist in guilt from my selfish wants and forced my shoulders to straighten from their sullen slouch and into a more eager and alert sturdiness. I casted a sweet smile on my lips which turned my chubby cheeks into twin squishy balls and crinkled my eyes into tiny slits, mother immediately responded with a sweet smile and a gentle caress across one of said cheeks before asking gently, "What do you think, my love?"

The question itself was innocent but the reaction would depend on the response. I could say I fucking hated the very thought of having to relive this bullshit of a school system and would much prefer spending the days reveling in Slyvia's sugary sweetness, the calming waves of her aura with the sweet smell of gardenias, the humid heat of glass paneling and the shimmering waves of green…which would be the truth. BUT this would make my mother sad…Slyvia would turn glum following this revelation and view it as a personal failure that her child didn't want to associate with others, which it wouldn't have been, but since my birth…still fucking weird to say that…Slyvia had taken to blaming herself for the first few months where all I had been was a wrinkly ball of rage and considered my struggle to adjust as some side effect from my heart fucking stopping sometime before my birth.

Can you believe it? I had almost died twice. Obviously, somebody up there hated me….where could I make amends? I mused to myself before sighing internally and turning to my mother with a smile that was as fake as some of the relationships that my old year mates had publicized on social media. That's right Janet, we always knew you and Tim never dated.

"It looks like fun." I lied right through my milk teeth and felt a shudder wrack through my body like a pinball machine as visions of some Mare grinning gleefully at my misfortune before cackling at the worst that was yet to come plagued my mind, drawing my attention away from my new teacher who had straightened with pride in the background from my statement. But as mother brightened and positively glowed I couldn't find it in me to regret my words or my decision to start a year early even though the temptation was choking me with its long, grasping fingers to tell her that I've changed her mind and would much rather spend another year at home, relaxing with Slyvia's soothing fingers running through my hair, soaked through by sweat and satisfaction from tilling hard, unforgiving earth and planting life in each hole.

I wanted to but I didn't. The words were rolled up and forcibly swallowed because no matter how much I would have preferred spending quality time with my mother I had to think about our future. I needed to get my re-education over with and I had seen the building white of red marred paper on mother's side table. The bills were piling up and Slyvia needed to go to work which was something that she had been putting off just to be able to spend time with me, her daughter.

I also knew that although my mother loved me, a sentiment I wholeheartedly returned and regretted not returning sooner, Slyvia was growing restless. The parts of her that had brought her to Greendale in the first place had started to bubble and boil over like a pot left on the stove for too long. My mother had always been wild and I was hindering her freedom, so if it meant having a year sooner of torture so my mother could find her passion here in these four beige walls of a town…then so be it. Did it mean that I couldn't regret my decision with every fiber of my being? No, of course not. I regretted even pitching the idea to her.

I mean the presentation had been well delivered, the conversation well received by her… if not a little tainted by sadness that came from a parent having to watch their 'baby' grow up so fast but Slyvia had always been receptive to my wants and strangeness and had never judged me for any of them, instead had listened with rapt attention and let me make my case like Lady Justice, slowly weighing the pros and cons. My mother never looked sideways at my strange maturity that had clouded my youthfulness with a glaze that would have left any other parent straining to see their child through it all but Slyvia had accepted it, nurtured it even, like some forlorn weed in her greenhouse. Something that everyone else would have casted out for daring to pollute the beauty of all the other more wanted plants, something that everyone else would have condemned for growing but mother saw just another living thing which had been ruined by perception. My mother saw something that needed to grow and so she let it.

I felt love and gratefulness crest over me, like waves awaiting the shore, and nearly swallow me whole, I truly understood Jonah at this moment, for it felt as if I was seated in the warm, moist belly of something that was so alive that it was frightening. I watched as mother wrestled with the need to keep me close, to try and prevent the world from trying to swallow my innocence with its sooty greed and selfishness that would leave black fingerprints on an otherwise white canvas, I felt as my mother loosened our tether and stepped back.

I felt it in the cinnamon-scented hug, the imperceptible shudder of her shoulders, heard it in the barely hidden warble of her voice. Mother wanted me to make my own decisions and so she refused to alter my choices by crying, and instead waited silently for me to choose, all the while moving slowly to give me time to be sure. I remained steadfast in my decision and when she realized she only smiled forlornly and proudly before waving goodbye as I was led away firmly by the warm hand of a stranger. She remained in my sight, a comforting sculpture of maternal love and devotion, until disappearing behind mahogany draped with cartoonish drawings of families and houses with rectangular doors and square windows.

The click behind me echoed in my ears and I felt truly alone for the first time since my new life had started and fucking hell was it terrifying. I felt the fear swim through my body, causing my skin to flush with heat and my hands to sweat and shake. My new teacher tugged my forward, farther away from my mother's comforting presence and from the din of the childhood happening outside. The reduction in sound was soothing as the panic continued to fill my ears with a high pitched ringing, I struggled to focus on the absence of the sound around me as my thoughts were becoming more confusing with each step further away from Slyvia.

My new caretaker helped to ground me as she took me on a tour of what would be my new classroom, filled with colorful tiles on the floor for sitting and miniature tables and chairs parted by cubby holes filled to the brim with various dolls and toys. I glanced around and noticed the expected mahogany desk at the front of the room, before a large chalkboard with Ms. Robinson written across it boldly. So that was her name then.

My scrutiny quickly turned to the woman behind me, who had been giving me time to get adjusted before throwing me to the proverbial sharks, she wasn't noteworthy. Everything about her screamed average, from the beige button up to the brown slacks all the way down to functional shoes. Her hair was blonde and her eyes a startling green which sadly was overshadowed by her plainness. She was reminiscent of a background character, someone who was there to fill the set of some popular T.V. show but whose features would ultimately fade from memory with a change in scene.

Overall, the classroom was satisfactory, no hints of dungeons, and the woman seemed nice enough so I let Ms. Robinson lead me to recess with an involuntary fearful twitch of my eye and clenching of teeth. The door opened and I was blasted with childish screams of victory and sadness

The former had been expected but the latter caused my muscles to tense as I watched some poor tiny human lose his toy because of what appeared to be a lost game of rock, paper, and scissors, which had continued to the soundtrack of his sobs. I had just stepped into the physical manifestation of kill or be killed and in this game, I needed allies.

The original plan to swim under the radar of my more childish counterparts and excel where necessary had been ditched because one glance at the savannah before me, just brimming with predators, and I realized it was time to adapt. I was the sirloin steak in front of a pack of slavering wolves. I was prime bullying bait not only was I tiny, I was younger than the rest of them and was admittedly smarter which had less to do with natural talent and more to do with 23 years of a previous life all stored in the backup memory of my brain.

This would be a great recipe for segregation topped with horrendous malicious acts all directed towards me for being different from everyone else. I think the fuck not. I quickly turned my focus into surveying my prospects with as critical an eye that I could muster…overall they weren't looking too great as the 'treasure finder' was immediately dismissed, leaving me with three blonde children sitting in a triangle and eating dirt whilst giggling, a large gaggle of well-dressed girls who seemed to be in a serious game of 'Simon Says' and a few solo stragglers here and there.

I zoomed in on the group of girls and made my decision. Safety in numbers it is. I heard the starting gun go off with a resounding mental 'bang' when the teacher nudged my shoulder gently, the universal symbol for 'go and play'.

"Well, aren't you helpful.'' I groused to myself, continuing my muttering as I approached the first group of giggling girls with nervous, faltering steps…my heart felt like it was going to beat through my chest the closer I got to them until I was close enough to hear the next command and the resulting laughter from Linda's failure.

They seemed nice enough from afar with ringing, bell-like laughter and well-brushed hair that shimmered in the sunlight. Each of them was wearing the same puffy-sleeved, knee-length dress but in varying colors and I would be lying if I said that I didn't already feel out of place with my sunned skin, curly hair, and flowy green dress, which Slyvia had hand-sewn for me. She had stayed up half the night to make sure every inch was perfect for my societal debut. But as I watched the pack of kid-sized debutantes before me, I found myself strangely lacking.

"Hello." I greeted calmly, already anxiously aware of the arm length difference in height between myself and the little girls in front of me. It wasn't something surprising because as Selina I had always been the short one among those in a room and had at one point started wearing shoes with a hidden heel to school to make up for the difference. It was expected that the trait would carry over to this life as well especially considering that my mother resembled more of a woodland fae than some demi-goddess of nature.

The girls giggling ceased unanimously and I felt a subconscious shiver run down my spine as they observed me in a way that only girls could, the way that made you feel hopeful and beneath them all at the same time. I felt the need swell inside of me to belong and finally took notice of the aching inside of me that I had painstakingly hidden behind stacks of books and late-night T.V. shows in my past life…it was the aching that came from not being invited to slumber parties cause I was too strange, the aching that came when Kevin Lancaster rejected me because I would only bring down his worth, it was the ache that came from being compared to Sammy when she had made it on the cheerleading squad while the only thing that I had done during high school was watch from the bleachers. It was childhood loneliness.

My anxiety and fear kept me still, I could taste the pungent flavor of rejection at the back of my tongue. The foulness was so severe that even the gentle breeze whistling through my curls before slipping into my ears lazily, couldn't distract me from the cloyingness. The girls remained still, their movements halted like dolls positioned by some well-meaning owner while they went to collect something that they had forgotten. Their eyes, the same repeating sets of blues and greens, seemed to glimmer in cruelty and interest as they internally ping-ponged if a continued association with me would be social suicide or if I had enough potential to be considered as a somewhat unwelcomed member into their own miniature version of high society.

The ring leader among them eased herself forward with a jaunty movement of limbs, which maybe on an adult could be considered intimidating and ladylike but on a child, it bore a striking resemblance to a newborn foal learning to walk for the first time. Eventually, she was so close that I could smell the strawberry hairspray her mother had applied earlier. I took the time to truly look at her, the way her white dress was carefully ironed, the way corn silk blonde locks were perfectly coiffed. She was the epitome of future head cheerleader and queen bee and she already knew it. She knew she stood out among her more slightly less eye-catching counterparts who all had hair of varying shades of brown and somewhat matching eyes. She knew she was perfect and had taken to determining if I was worthy of being her lackey because she was already the ruler and there could only be one.

I felt myself straighten up in the face of this unspoken challenge but my eyes remained diverted as I was unwilling to play in this game of dominance which seemed so out of place between two children. I felt the need to belong swallow my pride and left me reeling with the desire to make her like me, the shame came swiftly after that but did nothing but wrap around the desire in some futile attempt of dimming it but it was still left bright like looking at a light bulb through saran wrap…it was slightly fuzzy around the edges but it was still there.

Her top lip lifted and revealed tiny white teeth before she spoke, "Go away!" It was childish, poorly thought of, said very nasally but it still hurt. It still felt like I had been sucker-punched and all the air had been sucked out of me until I was left gasping and reeling for breath. Years and years of rejection crested over my head and left me shivering in the cold. It was a nasty brisk reminder of all the years that I was socially alone and a promise of the years to come with the same emptiness.

I opened my mouth to speak…something, to utter some scathing retaliation that was expected from someone of my mental maturity but found the box labeled 'comebacks' empty and my eyes watering with burning betrayers. Before they could crest over however and contribute to my playground punishment, their attention was thankfully grabbed by the sound of wheezing, vindictive laughter which gathered my reluctant, drowning gaze and pointed it to a sandbox. I expected to find the scene disinteresting, something less important to the sore ache inside of my chest, expected it to be another child eating something off the ground and finding the experience thrilling without a parent there to berate them.

Instead, my vision was filled with the slumped form of curly hair, her head was facing the sandy ground and her arms were filled to her elbows with a few stubborn sandy particles. Her pale blue overalls and orange shirt seemed overshadowed by the sheer curly wildness of her hair which seemed to almost rival my own. It wasn't the wondrous placement of flowing curls that grabbed my attention, though they seemed to briefly turn me to stone in amazement like Medusa's slithering strands, but the defeated slump of youthful shoulders…as if the world had been tethered and the wire snapped leaving the insurmountable weight trapped on her fragile frame and she had slowly withered from the oppressing heaviness the longer she was left unaided. She reminded me of a picture frame hung on the wall by a bent nail, on the outside the frame was fine, demonstrating no inclination of how close to shattering it was…until it was given one final push in the form of a slamming door or a dragging chair or a laughing child and just like that…it became just shiny fragments littering the floor. She seemed like a sapling without the wind-breaking support of an Oak behind her and was left to brave a hurricane alone, it was a battle she wouldn't win. At least, not on her own.

I watched as her opponent, tilted its head back in glee…roaring his victory over his fallen prey before continuing with their verbal assault. I felt my body move as if a woman possessed as if every second of not stretching out my hand to this poor withering creature would be a second closer to her end. I felt protectiveness surge within me and heat my blood as my body moved by itself, gobbling the distance between us as I bellowed a furious, "Hey!" which called the attention of all those playing around us. I slammed my hands into his chest and shoved with all the fury possessed in my small frame, the momentum pushing the villain off his feet and into the sandy ground below us. He looked up at me with confused, wide eyes which would have normally caused me to falter, to have pity, to apologize but I glanced behind me to hopeful, brown and felt mine darken with rage.

The trees surrounding the chain-link fence around the edge of the playground creaked and the ever-present green, that always littered the corner of my eye since that fateful day in the greenhouse, flared so bright that I would have been left temporarily blinded if my eyes hadn't been filled with raging red.

I let my anger be known in every cutting word I let loose, furiously berating the quivering form before me whilst remaining aware that this little being in front of me was a child. I felt the duller green of anchoring roots dig through rock hard earth to the light-filled surface, leaving hairline cracks in the soil. I felt the living iridescence around me, pulse and suddenly I felt the anger of the gentle beings overwhelm me, theirs was earthy and deep. It spanned eons of mistreatment and abuse, theirs wrote epistles compared to my minuscule words, I was suddenly made privy of their woodsy soliloquy as if spoken by Shylock himself in his rage that was so moving it spurred literary conversations for decades. Their anger was just and fueled mine.

I struggled to regain control as I repeated to myself that this person was a child. They were children. Children needed to be taught; not punished. The green receded along with the red, leaving behind dulled remnants. My stream of words ran dry and left me wheezing as my lungs shook for air and my chest heaved to fulfill the urgent request. The playground had grown deathly quiet, only punctuated by a nervous shifting of sneakered feet and wary shuffling.

The silence suffocated the previous sounds of play…then it was broken by sobbing from the form below me. The guilt was quick to appear like something buoyant in water, I forcibly beat it back because even though this person was a child, the person behind me was one too.

The sobbing quickly turned to sniveling before he uttered out, "I..mmm telllinggg Ms. Rrrobinsson." Then he quickly turned and ran.

I loudly scoffed and rolled my eyes. Whatever. I turned around slowly, taking deliberate measures to not seem threatening to the tiny person who still remained seated, but instead of sandy earth that she had hoped would swallow her whole or maybe defend her, which it almost did, she had turned bark brown eyes at me. Their color had been dimmed in my rage but now they were undiluted…they resembled tree bark that had been kissed by playful rays of shimmering sunlight. It was a mixture of lightened browns, caramels, and dark tones. They were stunning…and innocent. So innocent that it physically hurt to look at them and remember what led to them being downcast.

"Are you okay?" I cautiously whispered. Physically wincing when I realized she probably didn't want to speak to me after the scene I caused. Nevertheless, I stretched out a hand to help her up. I almost recoiled at her eagerness to take it, I did recoil at the tears that started to drip down her cheeks.

"Thank you." She said. Her head turned down in embarrassment from her emotional outburst. She then pulled gently on my hand to retrieve her standing.

My god.

She was tall.

She was like some jotun from legends of old. She was striking and through this rarity, I saw why she was bullied. She was different.

"I'm Rosalind." She muttered slowly and stutteringly.

She was adorable.

"I'm Daphne." I answered sweetly. Excitement bubbling inside of me as I realized this is what children do. Make friends and I was doing that.

I grinned at her, in my first true display of childishness, and she grinned right back, which dimmed slightly when her eyes canted behind me. I already knew what was there as Ms. Robinson's shadow swallowed my small frame whole. Her hand grabbed my shoulder swiftly before yanking me towards her as she powerwalked the both of us to the classroom, all the while lecturing me on kindness and friendship. I ignored her hypocrisy considering a child was being bullied on her watch in favor of waving giddily goodbye to my new friend because that's what she was. I mean isn't this how all lifelong friendships start, playground love? So I succumbed myself to my future punishment with glee. I had made a new friend, I wouldn't regret what came with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's how Daphne met Rosalind and the world quivered. Also, this chapter made me feel like playing a game, take a shot of water whenever I blatantly throw mythological references in your face lolll.
> 
> Hopefully, this was good for you guys. I was aiming to show more of Daphne's redeeming qualities and prove that she isn't just some depressing person.
> 
> As always, constructive criticism is welcomed but never demanded.
> 
> Please keep being safe and see you next chapter.


	8. Pumpkin Spice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo there lovelies, back with another long chapter. Hope you guys have been great. This is just a meh chapter for me but hopefully is great for you guys. As always, thank you for reading, I own nothing but my characters and keep being safe. Also, I'm planning on working out an upload schedule because I know how much it sucks to wait for uploads, I will def update you guys once I have it figured out.

I was 3 when I realized the inhabitants of Greendale weren't quite normal.

It had been my birthday and the town had been littered with early jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins with nefarious grins and seed smiles. The town of Greendale had been set ablaze by the russet tinted autumn winds and had taken it upon themselves to present their excitement a whole 2 weeks early.

I glanced around hungrily, reveling in the beginnings of cloth spider webs and only half-painted coffins, in the stripes of dripping red swiped across the white walls of buildings, at the sensation that seemed to blanket the otherwise dreary inhabitants and the dull town. It was like they had been awoken from hibernation like some giant grizzly and now were ravenous to consume every ounce of revelry they had denied themselves in self-induced sleep. It was electric and made me giddy, I felt myself bounce with every step as I cast my eyes around every black painted light post and fuzzy spider glued to the door of every store, I found myself truly beginning to love this odd little town, this love grew as I gazed upon the awestruck wideness of Roz's eyes which seemed to gleam with true wonder for the first time since I met her. I felt my heart clench with love for this tiny person who had become my first friend in this new life and stretched my hand and intertwined our fingers together in a swinging dance as we grinned and skipped together.

Roz and I had quickly become inseparable following the playground 'Battle Royale' and had immediately fallen into a routine of easy hugs, slumber parties with Slyvia at my house and weekends away in some adventure, as my mother decided she just HAD to get some fancy crystals from some little town in Chicago and no other crystal would suffice. Roz had become my confidant and partner in crime, she had also become Slyvia's second child as we were made privy one rainy afternoon, after having played ourselves out in the mud, that Roz and her father were alone. Her mother had passed away when she was three, consumed by an illness that left her withering away as it grew until she couldn't fight it anymore. Roz's eyes had watered during the explanation, her shoulders had caved in as if trying to protect herself from more pain and she had stuttered through most of her words and swallowed the rest in salty gulps. I had grabbed her in a hug, as tight as my tiny arms could muster, as I sat silently helping to brace her through her waves of pain. My mother had picked both of us up in her arms and embraced us before gently whispering to Roz that even though she couldn't replace her mother and didn't want to, Roz always had a home with us because we are family.

I quickly reinforced the sentiment, "Ohana means family and family means no one gets left behind."

I'm aware its plagiarism but sue me because at that moment as Roz's face crumbled in relief and her arms tightened around us…it was perfect. The conversation had inspired tears, hugs, and declarations of family till the very end as we made time for family dinners including Mr. Walker, who was only available every once in a while due to his busy schedule, every Friday.

The conversation had also caused me to cling on to Slyvia for the following two weeks like a limpet to its favorite tree. It had frightened me, the very thought of losing my mother, the only person I had in this life, and the only person in both to have loved me unconditionally regardless of grades or opportunities. It made me feel selfish as I had taken my mother for granted and had lost sight of how truly and utterly blessed I was and so had taken to subjecting Slyvia to the full brunt of that love, jamming everything that could fit, into two weeks of constant hugs, kisses, and cries for affection. In the face of my sudden neediness, Slyvia was rightfully befuddled but in a true Slyvia fashion she had accepted my needs, viewing it as a consequence of a gut-wrenching conversation which had left me feeling cold and bereft, and taken to fulfilling them to the best of her abilities with her sweet-smelling hugs. Although the two weeks helped to soothe me somewhat, the thought of death was still heavily stifling my thoughts. It refused to let anything else breathe and come to fruition, all I could think about was the finality of it because even though I was proof of life after…it wasn't a continuation of my past life but the beginning of a new one. Death was final in the way it marked the end of hearing Slyvia's voice, her wheezing laughter, the way she choked on her water because she forgot she shouldn't breathe while drinking.

It was final in the way it sharply ripped away her hugs, her presence, and her warmth. It was suffocating because it removed all traces of cinnamon and gardenias. In the past I had ignored death, for the most part, viewing it as an unmentionable but unavoidable part of life, I had thrown away all care for it, all reverence and in the end, it showed me its wrath and vengeance. It left me bleeding red and tasting rusted iron. Now, I know death was like someone blowing out a candle, something that could be foreshadowed by the expansion of cheeks but most times was sudden and swift and unpredictable. Death would be a gust of air extinguishing the flame of my favorite, one of a kind candle, smashing it to the ground in the process…leaving me with the lingering scent of gardenias and the soul-crushing revelation that I wouldn't be able to find another candle to replace the one I've lost. Death was an asshole and even though I respected it, didn't mean I would ever like it.

Looking back, it was probably my fixture on death that day that made me notice them so quickly.

I had been staring at my mother with alarming focus. Trying earnestly to remember her smiles at the revelry surrounding us and how for the first time since we moved here my mother seemed to finally fit in. Her differentness, though glorious, had been a point of contention amongst the Greendale housewives who had taken to endlessly criticizing my mother at every turn. Slyvia stood out like a bent nail in plyboard, an annoying urging that something wasn't quite right, and to the housewives, it wasn't. My mother was too showy with jangly bracelets and anklets, too revealing with her flowy dresses with thigh-high slits, too seductive with her jaunty walk that swung her hips like pendulums from side to side, the women of Greendale weren't fond of my mother and made sure to make it apparent from their side-eyes and sneering smiles. However, right now surrounded by gore and columns wrapped in bloody mesh, Slyvia seemed to belong like some firefly of night, a gleaming ball surrounded by blanketing blackness and it all made sense.

This new atmosphere suited my mother and made her glow even more brightly and in retaliation, with mouths soured by jealousy, the women had turned sharpened gazes to my mother who as always returned their anger with sweet smiles and 'good mornings'. I visibly bristled as they seemed to purr from her acknowledgment as if it made them better than her just because she greeted them first, they thought they won this exchange of non-verbal blows when it reality there was never even a match. Well, for Slyvia there wasn't a match…for me, this was a threat against the sole being I loved in this world and that was unacceptable. I returned their venom with sneering vitriol, contorting my cherubic features into something monstrous, visibly upsetting some and angering others with my disobedience.

It was as some asshole housewife was about to get kicked in her shin for daring to look at my mother too long that I noticed them for the first time.

It wasn't something planned or unavoidable like they had walked into my line of vision and took up all the space there so I had no reason but to notice them but it was more like an urging, a pulling….no, it was like a whisper. Something crawled into my ear and told me to look, right there at the book store…look at the three shadows. Two were adult women and in between was a tiny platinum blonde toddler. Overall, they were inconspicuous, nothing note worthy but somewhere inside they felt wrong, like a shirt pulled on inside out…it wasn't something you noticed until you paid close attention.

The women were a contrasting pair, one svelte all garbed in a black pencil skirt and matching button-up blouse, her hair was perfectly coifed and she exuded confidence and cunning like a perfume. If anyone asked me, "What do you remember most about her?" I wouldn't have answered any of the qualities mentioned above because it was her mouth that grabbed my attention and never let it go. Her mouth had been painted red like she had just finished a fresh kill and wore the coating of blood like a badge of honor. On anyone else, it would have just been plain ol' red lipstick but on her, it was like I was looking at her soul, or what was left of it, this woman was deadly and my instincts knew it. They had been blaring, screeching, made me tighten my grip on the people I loved the most as if I could do anything if I needed to protect them because even though I could do some parlor tricks here and there…I already knew this woman was out of my league.

The other had been plump, swaddled in a fuzzy crochet throw-over which contrasted against her purple dress and her spotty socked legs and feet, her blonde hair had been short and curled at the ends and she felt homey and insecure. She was unremarkable compared to her sister and as I watched her self-consciously adjust her shawl three times as her eyes never left her sister's self-confident form, it was obvious that she was aware of it too. To me, however, as I watched her and stared…she was more dangerous than her sister. She wasn't outwardly so but it was in her potential that I found myself shivering as although her sister frightened me, she made me scared shitless. She was like a tiny garden spider compared to her sister's snarling wolf, totally unnoticed as she was considered less dangerous than the obvious apex predator but she was deadly in the way she got you when you least expected it, slowly injecting protein-digesting venom into your bloodstream while you slept until it was too late.

The toddler had been swinging from the conjoined hands of what I assumed to be her aunts and had seemed gleefully oblivious to the sheer danger emitting from her family. She had been cutely primped into a flowy blue dress accompanied by frilly socks and black, shiny shoes…overall she was adorable so much so that I found myself simultaneously wanting to run away and hug her at the same time. Of course, I chose to run away because as I watched her little blonde head throwback in high pitched laughter…the kid was fine so fuck this. I quickly began tugging my mother and Roz back towards Velma, the name of my mother's beat-up buggy, causing them to throw bewildered glances in my direction but thankfully not questioning me. We had been less than 2 feet to the car when it all went to shit. 2 fucking feet when I ruined it.

I had been giddy thinking I would be able to prevent these predators from noticing us, euphoric thinking that we escaped that I forgot just how predators worked. They let you relax, think you're safe and then they pounce so it shouldn't have been surprising that when I glanced behind me to the threesome, that I found only two staring back at me…one tiny set of eyes endlessly confused and the other amused with a bloody curl of her lips. My heart stopped and I felt the air rush out of my lungs as I ran smack dab into the spider's web, my eyes slowly looked up into smiling brown and I felt myself wrench away from her as if I had been burned.

From afar they had been scary but up close…fucking up close I found myself petrified. They exuded magic like it was nothing, the sheer force of it felt like I was choking…triggering me into a bone-jarring panic that caused the few sparse trees around me to flare and begin to crack and creak in preparation to destroy my attacker. I felt their life force begin to hum around me and envelop me in glaring green, they were angry. They felt threatened and now they were going to ensure it never happened again. The headiness of their rage stabilized me and allowed me to breathe and soothe the green before they splintered the pavement and crumbled the foundations of buildings with their roots.

I glanced up at now curious brown and felt myself hide behind my mother's leg.

What can I say about my mother? She's loving and sweet and kind and a fucking badass. My mother felt my discomfort and shielded me and Roz, pushing us behind her until all that was visible were sprigs of curly hair and curious brown eyes. She had grinned, not smiled, sharply with all her teeth in a vicious greeting. My mother was not having it.

The newcomer must have felt the animosity coming off my mother in waves and had stepped back, not because she was afraid but because she was trying to get my mother to lower her guard, Slyvia realized it too and glared in return. The air had been heavy as they weighed each other, it was obvious my mother despite her posturing would lose in a true battle but the newcomer seemed hard-pressed to be friendly and as it became increasingly obvious that my mother wouldn't be submitting and answering first…she sucked in a breath and smiled wider.

"Hullo, my name is Hilda Spellman." She answered cheerfully with her words sweetened by a British accent.

My mother took her in from head to toe, observing every inch of her before slowly looking at her eyes. It was apparent my mother was going to make her sweat and so poor ol' Hilda had to wait for some long chilling seconds before my mother deigned to respond with a brief, "Slyvia. These are my daughters Daphne and Roz."

Hilda's eyes immediately met mine before glancing at my mother in interest, "I don't believe I have seen you around before."

"No, we don't get out much."

"Well, that's such a shame because I have a niece that's around the same age as one of your little ones there and I would just love to introduce them."

My ears filled with ringing as I tightened my hold on my mother's dress which she, in turn, responded with a tightening of her hand comfortingly on my shoulder.

"I'm not sure we have the time-" My mother had started saying before being cut off with a suave,

"Hello, I'm Zelda and this is my niece Sabrina." She immediately thrust her gloved hand forward. My mother eyed it dubiously and left it hanging in the air before it being used to classily adjust her other glove before being placed down.

Sabrina, in the midst of all this, remained ever so enviously ignorant and had immediately approached Roz with a big smile. They hit it off nicely as they conversed about their favorite color while I continued to silently panic at the imposing figures in front of my mother and me.

"It's lovely to meet you." Zelda continued mercilessly.

"Likewise." My mother bit back in the same disingenuous tone one uses for guests that they don't plan to entertain again.

"As my dear sister was saying. We would love to schedule playdates for our little ones as it's so difficult to find likeminded individuals here in this town."

I mean…it was. And staring at their off-putting manner of dress and my mother's it was likely they shared things in common but I was positive they were scoping us out as in a similar fashion to how my instincts had blared and informed me of their presence theirs would have as well. They were measuring us up as potential threats and as they continued to push for playdates it looks like we ranked pretty high. My mother seemed to realize that there was an ulterior motive as well and so pulled Roz, who had strayed a little from her side, closer and switched her hold to my hand before announcing that we had an appointment that we just couldn't miss.

"Ah, understandable my dear. Terribly sorry if we cut into your day but about that date? How would we go about contacting you?" It was Hilda who continued. They had a routine. Hilda soothed and Zelda went in for the attack.

"Well, if we met once then we must meet again." My mother answered firmly before quickly saying her farewells and bulldozing past the two of them. She kept her pace brisk which almost left Roz and I running until we were safely deposited in Velma and on our way home.

I glanced through the rearview mirror to the frozen forms of the little family that we had met. I couldn't quite place my finger on why they felt so wrong. I wouldn't be able to for many years to come but when I did I would equate the emptiness that they brought with them like the numbness of toes and feet, the elevated feelings of power like the slight edge of jagged metal in a raw cut with its sharp sting, the sheer drowning presence of fear, the little pinch of belonging that helped them to blend in…to death.

I would realize that they felt like death…but to us or the town…I wasn't quite sure. I knew, however, that I hoped I never saw them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for today's chapter guys.
> 
> I felt like the gang was really lacking in reliable and loving maternal figures as I felt Hilda, although lovely, was only really there for Sabrina. I knew that Slyvia would have definitely adopted the whole brood of them so be prepared for some lovely hijinks as normal teenagers are wont to do.
> 
> Thanks for reading and be safe guys.


	9. Chasing Thunder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo there my lovelies.
> 
> Here is another chapter but before we get into that just wanted to clear up a few things:
> 
> 1)I had taken some liberties with the character of Mrs. Walker because I searched high and low for proof of her existence and despite remembering reference being made to her, I just couldn't find the lines in the episode and so decided to kill her off for the aforementioned reason as well as the fact that the squad def needs som maternal love and she was just another absentee figure...so Slyvia is just gonna adopt them all lol. Thank you to the lovely Ketsueko for reminding me of this.
> 
> 2) Also, I changed the whole progression of the canon meetings as in canon I believe Susie and Sabrina met first and then Roz but this all falls into the plot I promise. Terribly sorry for not placing it in the prior author's note...was a little up in the clouds as it was a rushed update before I ran out of the door.
> 
> 3) We are def getting into Sabrina's headband but not for now. Patience my lovelies.
> 
> Anndddd...I think that is everything.
> 
> Now, back to the chapter. Please enjoy.

The air was moist and was weighed down by the smell of petrichor that left it clinging onto my skin, not even the slight chill of the night air could scrape away the slime left behind as each particle tried to seep into my bones. I smiled as the sky became luminescent as Zeus' battle with Typhon continued eternal, painting the sky with streaks of lightning punctuated with cracks of victorious laughter. This night belonged to the old Gods and a feeling as old as time filled me and left me quaking in delicious fear as I realized I was nothing but a spectator to this divine game, the realization left me breathless as I tilted my head back earnestly to catch the first drops of divine ichor as it came shattering down in a relentless patter against the beaten but grateful earth.

It was tranquility.

The truth of my insignificance in the grand scheme of things, liberating me as it shattered the shackles binding me to my past life and the guilt of my new one. It freed me from my worries about my future and those of my precious people and the remorse that I was nothing more than a body snatcher whose soul had been stronger than the original inhabitant's.

The exultation caused a laugh to bubble out of my throat, filling the air with my joyous wheezes and gasps. I was so enveloped in my joy that the slight copper taste of my laughter went unnoticed until it was finally accompanied by its red partner that left me choking and heaving, doubled over, leaving the once green grass stained by what was supposed to sustain me.

I drew in a gasping breath, wincing at the taste, as I tried to keep my panic from bubbling over. I was never given the chance as the new wave of red left me on my knees with tears streaming down my cheeks. I vainly grabbed my throat as each heave left burning cracks along it's lining, which then traveled down into the scorching in my stomach.

I was going to melt from the inside out and I didn't even know why. It was the uncertainty that left me shaking, that caused me to blindly run into the alcove of trees off the side of the meadow I had been standing in. It was the panic that caused me to overlook the warning flash of lightning and crack of concerned thunder.

I had run haltingly, like a wounded deer, trying in vain to outrun its predator…tasting the bitterness of encroaching death at the back of its throat and the sourness of not being able to save itself. It left me reeling as I blocked out all common sense and let instinct guide me.

That was my downfall.

I ran until the brush underfoot turned into rocks, until the healthy trees turned into withered skeletons of trunks and branches, until my path was blocked by a hunching shadow. I immediately froze, and with my inactivity, my surroundings came back into focus, the sounds of the forest were absent, all of them had fled in survival…the figure in front of me the sole remainder. He hadn't fled because he knew he was the tertiary predator and now in absence of other prey, I was his choice meal.

The thought left me choking on sobs and shaking as the thing looked at me…there was no reflection of the tapetum lucidum which allowed the other animals to see at night by reflecting what scarce light remained, there was no apparent lifting of the head only the sole sickening crack of a neck joint caused by sudden movement…but I knew. I knew it was looking at me because as soon as it did, my instincts blared like French horns, ringing so loud in my ears it drowned out my already deafening heartbeat and almost left me crumbled from the sheer force of it all. My knees trembled and knocked together as it continued to crack its joints as if checking if they were all there…I struggled with my knowledge as useless facts filled my head as I tried to think of a way to save myself.

"Run!" A voice screamed through my din of thoughts, it sounded like Sammy.

It shocked me into movement. "Run," my thoughts repeated it like a mantra, as the world narrowed down into seconds-, "Run!"- the cracking of sticks under my feet, the ting of copper covering my lips, the itchy sweat running down the back of my neck, and the smash of trees and bark as it fucking chased me. It was fucking chasing me. The air couldn't enter my lungs fast enough, the resulting struggle for breath slowing me down and causing me to panic more as the smashing got closer till I felt warm bursts of uneven, bloodthirsty breaths.

"Run!" Sammy screamed louder, her voice cracking as it shattered along my skull.

I focused on it as I grabbed what oxygen I could and forced my straining muscles forward.

I saw it then. A flash of lightning illuminating an otherwise nondescript meadow, filled with weedy stalks of long grass, I sped up my already lagging pace. A choked sob escaped my lips as the tree to my direct right shattered into nothing but wood chips as the weight of the thing smashed into it. I ducked and stumbled as it whizzed over my head, my hands grabbing moist soil as I pushed forward, I searched for the glimmering green but it was gonegonegone and I was alone.

"I wasn't going to make it,"- it got closer, some of the chips scratched my face as it leaped again-" You can do it, Sel!,"- I pushed into a final jump just inches away from the light-"So close…"- as I felt a sharp scratch along my left ankle and closed my eyes in a split second of defeat.  
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
I shot up with a breathless thud, my eyes unseeingly searching every dark corner of my room, my lungs ached and my muscles were quivering as boneless fingers grabbed at worn cotton sheets. My breath started to slow into wheezing gasps as I realized that I was alone, the revelation made me curl into myself as I sobbed in relief, it was as the air entered that I began to notice the pit patter of comforting droplets on the roof, the slight flash that left my eyes painted in veiny red for a split second and the rumbling of soothing thunder.

That was my first nightmare since starting this life and a part of me couldn't help but viciously curse the Spellmans for their nightmare-inducing abilities. I took in a deep breath and pulled my aching knees to my chest and gently rested my head on crossed arms while repeating to myself that," I was okay. It was not here. Everything is okay." I felt like crawling to my knees and praying in endless gratitude to the deity that saved me.

It was a crack that stopped me.

A slight, imperceptible creak that froze my blood and movements causing me to gingerly peak through gaps of sheltering arms to the darkest corner of my room.

I knew that I was probably overreacting as I carefully observed the otherwise normal space, I tried to calm down my racing heartbeat as the adrenaline started to flood my blood. My eyes glanced away for a second as I compared the distance from the bed and the hallway light visible through the crack of my doorway.

It was only a second to compare. It was only a second for the bed to shake under the weight of something jumping on it. It was only a second for me to catapult through the door… I didn't turn around and look behind me as I ran to my mother's bedroom, I didn't think of what could happen to loving, human Slyvia, all I knew was that I needed my mother to save me.

I tried to scream through fear flattened lungs but only creaks emerged, like a struggling baby bird in the grasp of a python.

I barreled through her door like a woman possessed, startling her awake as I dove into her arms in shaking relief and overwhelming fear.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning emerged as routinely as before, no indication of my brush with something otherworldly, in fact, if not for the red glancing mark marring my ankle, it would have all been nothing but a dream.

The entire affair had left both my mother and I justifiably shaken as we tried to rationalize what exactly had happened. We narrowed it down to an overactive imagination, too much sugar before bed, and a sharp footboard and so in our eagerness to dismiss the issue entirely we turned to our shared comfort…the greenhouse. The humid heat was welcomed to chase away the chill that never seemed to leave me despite the bright sun outside.

And soon the entire issue was forgotten under glass paneling and the feeling of moist earth and glimmering green. Today, the green was a bit more dull than usual but I associated that with my mental exhaustion, it wasn't until I went to go add some insect eaten vegetables to the compost located near the woody perimeter of the house that I would know exactly why.

It came in the form of deep, cavernous, chunks of misplaced mud leaving behind deeps grooves. It was the misplaced taproots and their fibrous companions left in the open air and sun which would normally kill them. It was the overturned and crushed metal compost container and the slight closeness of my green guardians to our home that triggered the sobs that had me running to embrace the nearest bark-covered surface. The contact immediately soothing me as the dull mossy undertones were replaced by shimmering emeralds and shamrocks, soothing the denied dull ached of betrayal that I had repressed. I had found myself hurt that I hadn't been able to call upon them in my truest time of need but now nestled near apologetic earth, I found myself truly comforted. They had tried to help me.

My mother had run to my aid at the sound of sobs and reached out concerned arms but I found myself shunning them for Gaia's embrace because although I loved my mother, truly and deeply, I was also aware of just how human she was. She couldn't protect me, she wouldn't be able to, nor should I expect her too for all that would do is allow her to get hurt and so I sought sanctuary in the living armor before me.

My mother understood through her ache and stood aside and let me gain my comfort in any way that I could.

It would be later as I slowly walked to my room, covered in mud, and with eyes rimmed by black that I would be greeted with a sight that would fill me with dread.

I had just opened the door as Sammy turned her serious gaze to my exhausted one. Normally, her presence would have triggered a fresh set of tears in the face of my trauma due to the presence of a familiar and loving face but as I took in her disheveled appearance, all muddy and torn, that I felt panic crawl up my spine.

"We need to talk."

Oh, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, that's all for now.
> 
> Side note: I'm aware that Zeus and Typhon only truly battled once (according to most of my mythological sources) but I also took liberties with that as well because I apparently have no rules lol.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone and be safe.


	10. Raining Hail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there everyone! Hope you are all doing okay. So sorry about the delay but I have been so swamped with studying that I didn't really have time to write and edit until last night. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I will try to post another much sooner. Love you all.

Living was exhausting.

I know it was unfair of me to say this considering I had the dubious privilege, but privilege nonetheless, of being reborn with a loving mother, the ability to manipulate nature and a sweet and loyal best friend.

I mean, I was living the life if one dismissed the crippling depression that threatened to consume me whilst I was gestating, the endless grief that sometimes picked at scabs of my heart to remind me of the family I lost no matter the one I gained, and the fucking shadowy monster that tried to fucking eat me.

That last one is a bit of a sore subject for me.

Especially since Sammy's presence answered none of my questions and only added more on to the ever-growing list which I had quickly jotted down in red crayon on some wayside drawing paper before I had crawled my way upstairs. It was all frayed and coffee-stained edges but I had needed something to jot down my thoughts before I forgot them in my justifiable exhaustion.

Well, it was only one thought/question that I had scrawled in uneven loopy letters:

Am I going to die again?

The thought had almost thrown me into shuddering sobs as I remembered the creaking of wood, the cold dampness of piercing metal and its accompanying taste in my mouth but most of all, the blackness that followed. The blackness that consumed and tormented for months on end with no reprieve until I was on the brink of insanity and had almost given in to Maniae's bittersweet kiss.

It was a cold and unwelcome reminder that although I had otherworldly gifts, I was nothing if not human. And so was my precious family.

I had brought up this ache inspiring fear to my sister only to be met with confounding dramatics as she skipped around the question in a true Sammy fashion. In fact, she had only confirmed that the malevolent entity that I had encountered and almost intimately got to know the stomach and teeth of was in fact fucking real and had only given me one task before disappearing leaving behind a muddy butt print on my bed, which I was admittedly pissed about as it was my favourite comforter.

It was due to this task that we, my mother, Roz and I, found ourselves in our current predicament.

"Befriend the littlest Spellman,"

I sighed and straightened as we approached the creaking sign of "Spellman Sister Mortuary" overall if I was being honest this is exactly what I imagine a witch's house to look like.

It was like an entity all on its own, it was intimidating in its structure like some smiling monster trying to lure you in with the promise of warmth in its empty stomach. It was all smoked and blackened wood and seemed to somehow absorb all the light surrounding it leaving the nearby cemetery blanketed with fog and swallowing the remaining surroundings in a color dulling bleakness. It seemed to rise out of the shadows surrounding it despite the heavy heat and glare of the midday sun.

Even with its overwhelming presence, it wasn't the house that added lead to the weights heavy in my stomach…it was the brown that surrounded it.

In spite of the multitude of trees, I wasn't able to connect to any of them…it was like walking through an abandoned greenhouse during winter, all spider web covered glass and timber and the creaking remains of woody life that death had consumed. It was an absence of all colour as if I had switched from a technicolour movie to a black and white sitcom with no punch line in sight, just an endless haunting laughing reel that never seemed to stop. It was jarring and made me regret coming here all the more.

Bone-chilling uncertainty led my eyes to my constant as I observed Sylvia's white-knuckled grasp on the steering wheel. It appears we were in a similar emotional cycle of dismay, anxiety, fear and worry.

My mother had taken the news of me wanting to associate with the Spellman's as well as a nun in a brothel. She had been endlessly confused, warily supportive of my own decisions and somewhat disgusted of the company I was planning to keep. She had written off the Spellman's from that first ill-begotten meeting with their endless pushiness, their lack of respect for our boundaries and the overall feeling of ill-ease that seemed to blanket the pale family-like sparkles on Edward Cullen.

Honestly, if this was how vampires felt…then Bella was an idiot.

I for one, was not. Just a poor unfortunate soul caught in an endless clash with death who didn't seem to like having lost his battle against loopholes and was determined to reclaim my sad dusty soul as his once and for all.

An argument could be made that he technically would get my soul eventually once this body gave out, hopefully from old age, but I doubt that would go over well with him. So, it was just best to not bother to get my hopes up with imagery of a celestial courthouse and angelic jury.

I spent most of the inching to the home, if it could be called that for how cold it felt, in a monotonous monologue that was somewhat amusing as I acted out the roles of judge, jury and executioner to my own heavenly trial. Newsflash, they brought up my old kleptomaniac tendencies…I lost. The jarring of Velma's rusty brakes broke my reverie and pulled back to my fate.

I sighed as my mother and I met gazes. Hers was one of support and love, even though she didn't understand my change of heart, she was there for me every step of the way. Mine was more of a lamb being led to slaughter but desperately trying to appear as if it was just a stroll through a meadow.

I side-eyed Roz and found her absolutely buzzing with expectant excitement. She had been overjoyed to hear that we were going to spend an entire day with Sabrina. It looks like their five-minute conversation was absolutely enlightening and had shown Roz that our daring duo was meant to be a triumphant trio instead.

It would have been cute, her excitement and determination to make us all friends if the air wasn't tinged with the faint smell of death that most people mistook for rotting flowers, it was a kind of sickly sweetness that you only really noticed if you got too close. I had been too close once, and that smell had become something that I would never forget.

My mother smiled then and got out of the car. It was obvious that my reckoning had come and it was time to pay the piper. Our difference in mood was seen in the way I dragged my feet, my mother stepped confidently and Roz's excited hop wobble step.

Slyvia dubiously eyed the ornate knocker before reluctantly slamming against the even more antique door. The house was more terrifying up close, the sheer emptiness was overwhelming…it felt ravenous. My body shuddered as I envisioned myself becoming its very next meal.

The door slowly creaked open to Zelda's cold professional smile. She was greeting us in the manner one would a grieving family…an air of welcome but the boundary of cold professionalism ever-present. She was dressed to impress in a skin-tight knee-length skirt and a long-sleeved button-up top which showed just enough of her cleavage to be tasteful but not too much to be scandalous. All in black, of course. Her hair was perfectly curled and her bloody lips were tilted just so…just enough to show just how much this woman radiated sin and temptation.

If there wasn't so much proof that the devil was a man, I would have thought I had met her twice over. This woman was dangerous and I found myself begrudgingly respecting her for how well she wore her sin. It was almost like a perfume to her, what a woman.

My eyes glanced down shapely stocking-clad legs as my mother and Eris conversed. As she was nothing if not the human embodiment of chaos, she was the ever-present internal conflict. The little niggling in the back of a married man's head to glance at the waitress with the nice legs, the little whisper in the ears of a righteous girl who was trying to ignore the dark promise in another's eyes. Zelda was tumultuous thoughts and confounding emotions.

Her legs seemed to stretch for miles, until I became eye level with startling brown, their clarity absorbing. It was the littlest Spellman. Until it wasn't, I was no longer staring at a little girl with blonde pigtails but instead, it was a woman, svelte and faelike in appearance…a deceiver who hid behind her meekness as a shield to her true power. Her hair was beyond platinum and had seeped into a dusty white, just an inch shy from true purity, her lips had adapted an ever-familiar bloody curl and although it was striking against her snowy skin, it never held a candle to the original.

Hers was a different tune. It spoke of destruction and fire. It spoke of death and as my earthy brown met ghostly white orbs, I knew that she was the end.

My heart thudded in my chest as the image faded and left behind a gap-toothed smile and trusting eyes. I wanted to bend over and wretch onto their dirty, stained porch. They were just like this house. Stained, warped, unsalvageable.

A ringing in my ears and a whisper of, "Everyone can be saved." Gave me pause in my mental defamation. I looked at this child in front of me and I observed her. From her earnestness to meet my gaze, the slight wobble of her lips when my smile took just a tad too long to respond, the gentleness of a childhood spent without rift or pain. I no longer saw a ghastly omen but a tiny person. I no longer saw the darkness coming to consume me with razor-sharp teeth and claws. Be that as it may, I still saw a problem. This little girl would be my end, but as I watched the way her eyes seemed to dim from my non-verbal refusal, the way Roz's shoulders seemed to slump…I just couldn't find it in me to be harsh to this little being.

She could bring about my end, yet I couldn't bring about hers. That didn't mean that I would have to enjoy spending time with her. I only really had to be decent enough to placate Roz and fulfil Sammy's request because, at the end of the day, that is all she was. A request. A chore. A mark of an impending apocalypse. This little girl was trouble and although I was willing to risk it for my own life, I drew the line for my precious people. This little being was an obstacle to ensuring the safety of Roz and Slyvia, so I would be nice and kind and eventually when I could be free...I would pack my loved ones and run.

Until then, I smiled while swallowing down a mouthful of bile, gripped Roz's hand and stepped inside as Zelda led my mother to the kitchen with the promise of a warm cup of tea and good conversation.

"Befriend the littlest Spellman," she had said.

So I would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Daphne isn't too keen on Sabrina. Understandable. But lets see how long her emotional distance lasts in the face of Sabrina's cuteness.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Be safe, you guys.


End file.
